The day after the day after Valentine's day holiday

I don't know what it is officially called but my kids' school indeed have today, tmw as well as next Mon (President's day) off. So I have no choice but to take a day off with them as well. To prepare for this, I slept for 10 hours on the Valentine's night. Then the "celebration" began on Wednesday with a dinner at the Sushi boat restaurant nearby (it's the first time my son has been to one, unlike his sister :P) And a 3+ hr TV marathon afterwards: 1 documentary (about female orgasm), 1 episode of sitcom (How I Met Your Mother), 1 episode of cartoon (Transformers Prime), 1 motorcycle race (endurocross: an man-made obstacle course within an arena), 1 kickboxing match, 1 Rugby Seven final (the one just played in Las Vegas. What a dramatic finish!)

After a good night of sleep (no need to wake up early to make breakfast for kids), I decided to cycle with the kids to Stanford, which easily killed off 3 hours (2 hour round-trip ride + 1 hour lunch) Then I had some free time for myself. My activity is usually very predictable: either biking or golfing. I chose the latter (at my favorite 9 hole: Sunken Garden, where my buddies and I spent a lot of time way back). I try to play at least once (even if it's just a 9-hole course) per year. I shot a birdie at a Par-3 today! (Haven't done that for years :P Not that I played a lot) The "big finish" was supposed to be a visit to the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. I did go but it was a brief visit. Long story: anyone with any museum experience has probably seen some areas in museum being closed off to prepare for new exhibitions. And probably was curious what it looks like when an exhibition is being prepared. Well, for a small museum like Triton, when it needs to change to new exhibitions, it either closes off the whole place or let visitors see the "secret." And Triton did the latter. So I spent 10 min walked around and saw old exhibition pieces that were taken off lying on the floor and new pieces still wrapped waiting to be hanged up! Not a bad finish of my day off.

Guitar Heroes

This is not about the video game (which I indeed played) but an exhibition with the same name in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met). It will end on July 4th and it's unlikely that I would see it in person. I did browse through the collection online, including John Monteleone's Four Seasons: a set of four archtop guitars. Even though I didn't see the real thing, I was able to hear them via Anthony Wilson's album: Seasons, which contains the suite written for a performance of these 4 guitars at the Met by 4 top NYC jazz guitarists from the new generation, plus other pieces played live at the same concert.

「新遮」

在讀書時代在女人街買的一把縮⻣遮，左爛右破，竟然用到去年Spring Break；終於買了一把替代品，那是有防風吹反功能的新設計。但買了差不多一年，只試過幾次毛毛雨也打開它過一過癮，卻未曾經歷任何真正考驗！今早終於有一場夠大的雨讓它派上用場。雖然我不喜歡被雨水沾濕（特別是近年多了踩單車），倒也不介意今週下點雨，讓這裡喜歡滑雪的朋友享受下真雪；也算是上天為薄命的Whitney Houston流點眼淚吧。總之不要下太多，令上山之路太難行就好了。